Texas coach dies after extreme heat on first day of practice

It took two days for football practices in South Carolina's stifling heat to claim a victim. It took practices in Texas only one, with a more shocking victim: A coach.

According to TheOldCoach.com and a variety of Dallas-area media outlets, Plano (Texas) Prestonwood Christian School assistant football coach Wade McLain collapsed and died after his school's first football practice on Monday afternoon. While the cause of death remains unknown, it is believed that severe temperatures in the area played some role in McLain's passing; Monday was the 31st consecutive day where temperatures in the Dallas area soared past the 100-degree mark.

Prestonwood Christian Academy released a statement on the school's Facebook page expressing sadness at McLain's passing while trying to support the rest of the PCA community.

The program's other coaches and players met hundreds of other supporters at the school on Monday evening to remember the 55-year-old assistant coach, who left behind a wife and five children.

While the official cause of death may not be known until a complete autopsy is performed, McLain is the second death to come during or immediately after high school practices held in extreme heat in the span of three days. As Prep Rally reported, South Carolina teen Tyquan Brantley, a rising freshman at Lamar (S.C.) High, was pronounced dead Saturday evening after collapsing during a practice earlier that day. Temperatures reached 101 degrees in South Carolina on the day of Brantley's death.

None of that can help comfort the McLain family or Prestonwood community, which will have to find not only a new assistant football coach, but also a new history teacher and baseball coach, just three of the ways in which McLain was involved in the school of 1,400 students.

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